The 10 Best Food Trucks

Spencer on the Go!

San Francisco

www.spenceronthego.com

Four years ago, noted chef Laurent Katgely, who has cooked at renowned restaurants on both coasts (Lespinasse in New York, Boulevard in San Francisco), got a little heated during service and cooled off by taking a walk to a local taco truck. It was there that he had a vision: French food on the street. Now, voilà! Spencer on the Go! Parked in front of an oil-and-lube joint a few blocks from Katgely’s acclaimed bistro, Chez Spencer, his satellite operation serves sautéed skate cheeks with caper emulsion and green beans in a butter-lettuce bowl; sweetbreads with smoked bacon and truffle sauce; and a substantial lobster salad with sliced citrus. You can snack vigorously for less than ten bucks or enjoy a three-course meal for about $25. Organic white Burgundies from François Mikulski, as well as other great finds, can be bought at Terroir, the wine shop across the street. Only in San Francisco could a parking-lot picnic come together so seamlessly.

Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream

New York City

www.vanleeuwenicecream.com

With his growing fleet of trucks, which could number as many as five in New York by summer’s end (not to mention possible expansion to Miami and Los Angeles), 25-year-old Ben Van Leeuwen—with wife Laura and brother Pete—brings the 200-year-old tradition of serving frosty desserts on the street to its culmination. Pistachio is made with nuts from the Sicilian slopes of Mount Etna; red currant, embedded with tart, icy berries, is a nod to Scandinavian sweets; vanilla comes from Tahitian beans, aged for months in vodka-filled oak barrels. There’s no dehydrated-milk products, no confounding soft-serve chemistry. Just ice cream in its purest (fanatically sourced) form. Plus, sundaes!

Kogi BBQ

Los Angeles

www.kogibbq.com

When this Korean truck hit the scene last year, frenetically Tweeting its location, it instantly began drawing late-night eaters willing to wait over an hour. They were there for more than the cool-kid cachet. They were there for short-rib tacos, spicy pork burritos, and even goofy items like Spam-kimchi sliders and the Kogi dog, topped with a bun-dissolving heap of shredded cheese, onion-lime relish, mayo, and hot sauce. In other words, a savory mash-up of hot and cold, sweet and salty, and rich and spicy that works even if you aren’t a little on the drunk side.—BRETT MARTIN

Mmmpanadas

Austin, Texas

www.mmmpanadas.com

Having lived in Costa Rica, Cody Fields recognized that no food is better suited for the street than the empanada. So back in Austin, along with now wife Kristen, he found a truck on eBay, plunked down twenty grand, and worked out a recipe—having never made an empanada in his life. Now Mmmpanadas serves fifteen varieties of encased mains and desserts whose perfectly seasoned fillings range from green-chili chicken to ground beef, egg, and olive; from barbecued brisket to mango-ginger. Since the truck serves a breakfast option (egg and chorizo inside its signature crispy, buttery shell), here exists a rare opportunity in street food: three meals a day.

Cravings

New York City

www.nyccravings.com

Young chefs have long learned their trade by working for more experienced ones. Thomas Yang, 22, learned his

on food trucks. He made tacos and dumplings for a couple of prominent New York City mobile operations before opening his own this summer along with his sister, Diana, and their friend Eric Yu. From their refitted Italian-bread truck, they serve the finest fried-chicken lunch in town for the bargain price of $6. Done Taiwanese-style, the chicken is not battered but rather deep-marinated in Chinese five-spice powder and soy sauce, then plunged into boiling soybean oil and served over rice with “secret pork sauce.” The crispy, juicy thigh-and-leg combo makes a case for the supremacy of Taiwanese-style frying (sorry, Korea). And that pork sauce? It’s the city’s most dynamic piggy bite since David Chang’s Momofuku pork bun.

Fojol Bros. of Merlindia

Washington, D.C.

www.fojol.com

Fojol’s food actually comes from a reliable D.C.-area Indian restaurant whose identity the “brothers”—four young white dudes manning the truck in sparkly turbans, neon coveralls, and paste-on mustaches—won’t disclose. But you’re not supposed to believe you’re eating Indian food, anyway: Everything off the carnivalesque truck—tender meat and vegetable curries, brilliant mango-lassi Popsicles, Fojol-brand sweet-and-savory bagged snacks—expressly comes from the fictional utopia of Merlindia. Just go with it. Pick among chicken masala, pumpkin stew, potatoes and cauliflower (elsewhere aloo gobi), and Punjabi-style spinach and cheese—all delicious. Listen to blaring big-top tunes. Watch your hosts roller-skate around the truck. It’s part stylized Wes Anderson set piece, part mock–Baz Luhrmann musical, all eco-friendly (sustainable plates and sporks!). And it’s more fun than anyone’s had on the streets of Washington, D.C., perhaps ever.

Marination

Seattle

www.marinationmobile.com

Based in part on Hawaii’s thriving lunch-truck culture, this SWAT-team-blue Seattle venture brings a taste of the pan-Pacific to the streets of the Pacific Northwest. That means kimchi quesadillas, Korean Kalbi-style short-rib tacos with a special vegetable slaw, kalua pork sliders, and more than a few opportunities to get down with Spam. The menu takes cues from Korean and Mexican street food as well as from the traditional luau: That succulent kalua pork tastes like it was cooked in a beachside hole-in-the-earth imu oven. Some tricks, however, are unique to Marination, like on-site customer hula-hooping and a classified spicy, creamy sauce for the sliders called “nunya,” as in “nunya business.”

Fresh Local

Portsmouth, New Hampshire

www.freshlocaltruck.com

Josh Lanahan, a Culinary Institute of America–trained chef, conceives and cooks the comfort-food menu. His fiancée, Michelle Lozuaway, plays ultimate curbside host. And a butcher named Popper mans the grill. The burger meat is freshly ground and tastiest on the rare side with diced tomato and white American. The pulled pork is really porchetta, the saliva-inducing slow-roasted pork of Italy. That alone is worth the hour’s drive up from Boston, as are the tart local blueberry soda and Josh’s riff on the banh mi. Now just one note to the Portsmouth parking police, who have singled out this truck as a nuisance: Lay off. Messing with a man’s lunch is a serious offense.

Border Grill

Los Angeles

www.bordergrill.com

It takes real balls to challenge the grand Los Angeles taco-truck tradition head-on. But it helps, of course, to have

the pedigree of Border Grill, the Santa Monica restaurant that helped elevate south-of-the-border grub to gourmet status. Here tacos contain slow-roasted pork, pickled onion, and orange salsa, or fried avocado and wild mushrooms. You can even get ginger-spiked mahimahi ceviche in a corn-tortilla cone. We’re not saying you should forsake your favorite mobile Mexican option altogether; just add this one to your rotation.—BRETT MARTIN

Streetza

Milwaukee

www.streetza.com

Up until now, the phrase “Wisconsin-style pizza” has been evocative of precisely nothing, which is sad considering the state’s surplus of excellent cheeses and top-notch tubular meats. Streetza, the new Milwaukee-area, 650-degree oven on wheels, is putting an end to all that. Their pies aren’t exactly modeled on D.O.C regulations. That’s not Wisconsin. What is? Delicious populism: Customers suggesting pizza recipes on Twitter, introducing the hungry Cheesehead public to ultra-local slices like The Brew Crew Sausage Race. That’s five kinds of hometown Klement’s sausages on one pie, including hot dog, plus six kinds of cheese. Don’t knock it. It’s artisanal and balanced in every way, right down to the hand-stretched, cornmeal-dusted crust.

Four years ago, noted chef Laurent Katgely, who has cooked at renowned restaurants on both coasts (Lespinasse in New York, Boulevard in San Francisco), got a little heated during service and cooled off by taking a walk to a local taco truck. It was there that he had a vision: French food on the street. Now, voilà! Spencer on the Go! Parked in front of an oil-and-lube joint a few blocks from Katgely’s acclaimed bistro, Chez Spencer, his satellite operation serves sautéed skate cheeks with caper emulsion and green beans in a butter-lettuce bowl; sweetbreads with smoked bacon and truffle sauce; and a substantial lobster salad with sliced citrus. You can snack vigorously for less than ten bucks or enjoy a three-course meal for about $25. Organic white Burgundies from François Mikulski, as well as other great finds, can be bought at Terroir, the wine shop across the street. Only in San Francisco could a parking-lot picnic come together so seamlessly.